U20 Finals shatters TSN record

Part of gold medal game was watched by 9.3 million Canadians

Team Canada's gold medal victory at the World Junior Championship on Monday night has made ratings history for TSN as the most-watched broadcast of all time on the network.

Preliminary data revealed 3.7 million viewers watched Canada take its fifth consecutive gold medal in a 5-1 victory over Sweden. The audience surpassed TSN's previous audience high of 3.5 million viewers for the gold medal game at the 2003 World Junior Championship in Halifax.

The gold medal game on TSN is the most-watched program ever on a Canadian specialty channel and is also the most-watched program overall across all Canadian television this broadcast season. Audience levels for the game peaked at 4.7 million viewers at 9:58pm (ET), as Team Canada celebrated its victory in Ottawa.

With 602,000 viewers, French-speaking RDS also had a record audience for the gold medal game. TSN and RDS's total combined viewership for the game was a record 4.3 million. The game was watched in whole or in part by 9.3 million Canadians, or nearly 30% of the country's population.

Overall, the World Junior Championship in Ottawa has been the most successful tournament ever for TSN. The network averaged 1.7 million viewers over Team Canada's six games (four preliminary round games, one semi-final game and the gold medal final), surpassing the previous high of 1.6 million in the 2006 event in Vancouver by 5%.

TSN.ca also scored big with Team Canada's gold medal win with an additional 100,000 viewers watching live streams of the championship game online.